WIPO hit by Little Mermaid

12.Dec.03 - Tonight WE SIZE! actiovists gathered at the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) building to project a short tape from Negativland which spoofs copyright by having the Little Mermaid speak about the imporatance of private property.
The police initially tried to stop the screening, but were persuaded to go easy when presented with an invitation to the screening, printed (unbeknownst to the police) by the group, which looked like a formal and official invitation from WSIS, inviting people to a reception and screening at the WIPO. Several delegates in suits also showed up, having received the invitation at the summit meetings, where it was widely distributed. [read more] [fr]

dailysummit.net on WE SEIZE! polimedia lab

12.Dec.03 - At last, after a long search, Daily Summit tracked down Polymedia, renegade media outfit, evicted from their first home, but now resident in a Genevan cinema/theatre.
Harassed, harangued, haunted, but happy at last! And (there's no better way one can put it) these guys are weird...
First thing you notice: no telephones. But lots of computers, all set up to disseminate what they believe to be real information, the sort that should matter to people. [read more]

Civil society plenary denounces WE SEIZE! repression

12.Dec.03 - The Civil Society Plenary, meeting in its final session during the first phase of the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) taking place from December 10-12 2003 in Geneva, unanimously condemns the undemocratic actions of the Swiss authorities and the Summit organizers in suppressing dissenting and alternative voices. [read more]

WE SEIZE! : Getting to grips with information society

12.Dec.03 - Yomango is one of the many articulations for an approach that made the polymedia lab possible. Polymedia Lab was an experiment in free sharing of knowledge and software, cables, boxes and food, and in some cases even clothes. It came together despite initial problems on the 9th, when the authorities who suddenly decided that the project could not take place at the scheduled location. Eventually, Geneva City Council provided the Palladium, a stylish culture venue. Strangely enough, when the council was asked for a space a few weeks ago, they were not able to find something, claiming that all spaces were fully booked. [read more]

HighNoon on (HighJacked) stream

11.Dec.03 - HighNoon has just gone on air ! High Noon is an audiovisual protest that wants to confront and expose the rhetorics of the WSIS in geneva in order to assert our claims to the so called "information society".
During the next days people from all over the globe will be able to watch the variety of media contributions and interventions uploaded by media activists and artists from around the globe. We will be following the revolution of the sun using its light as a scanner to raise up local experiences and stories to tell. [read more]

Pirate Pride

11.Dec.03 - Laws expanding the scope and duration of exclusive private rights in information [copyright, patent and trademarks and trade secrets] have been a constant since the late 1970s. Growing awareness of the consequences of these laws - combined with the emerging potential for autonomous cultural production - has produced a counter-movement in recent years. The promulgation of formal law from above is not enough to control human behaviour and creativity. [read more]

WANTED! Habib Ammar

10.Dec.03 - the second phase of the WSIS process will be held in tunesia in 2005. This choice of location for a summit that is about access to information if one considers tunesias human rights record, the recent imprisonment of (internet-) journalists and its restrictive press and internet policies. the current tunesian president (and future wsis host) has been made responsible for torture of political oponents in the 1980s. [read more]

Polimedia Lab relocates

10.Dec.03 - PolyMediaLab is an event of the Geneva03 initiative, designed to provide a space and facilities for media workshop activities, collaborative work and information sharing. The workshop is open to the public.
Journalists, media artists, programmers, activists and documentaries will meet for the next three days to discuss themes around the Information Society, and to share skills focused on participation and contribution to international knowledge sharing. A particular emphasis will be placed on independent media production and alternative methods of information sharing. [read more] [fr]

Report from WE SEIZE!

10.Dec.03 - The following short report from mondays press conference and the 1st day of the strategic conference was written for the mailing list of the oekonux project.
Monday has been the second day of preparation of the "We Seize!" (after a year of online preparation). It started with a press conference in the morning. [read more]

Polimedia lab : we are seized !

09.Dec.03 - This morning around 10 am the access to the Polimedia Lab has been denied. On demand of the owner of the building 20 policemen in riot gear showed up and asked the We Seize! media-activists to pick up their material and leave the building. Under the pretext of inappropriate safety measures the owner didn’t agree that the space was rented to the Geneva03 collective. The Geneva03 collective negotiated with the owner to prevent the eviction of the place. [read more]

THIS TUESDAY: Migration, labour, media and organizing -- The back side of the information society

08.Dec.03 - What does migrant workers struggle have to do with the information society?
How can information and communication technologies empower social struggles on a global level?
What's the link between the campaigns for freedom of communication and the fight for freedom of movement?
On the eve of the UN summit on the information society the EVERYONE IS AN EXPERT association calls to a debate about issues that are not present on the agenda of neither govermental nor non-governmental organizations: migration, labour, and organizing [read more]

Geneva03 WSIS? WE SEIZE! - Press Release

08.Dec.03 - The World Summit On Infomation Society (WSIS) takes place in Geneva from the 10th - 12th December, 2003. While the official agenda of this UN/ITU Summit talks about free access to information, the digital divide and equality of opportunities, in reality its doors are closed, its discussions exclusive and the agendas of those who attend it concealed. What is more, the right to demonstrate and protest has been suspended in Geneva at this time as the usual parade of despots and tyrants fly in to Switzerland to define policy for their own citizens, and the rest of the world, based on the agendas of corporate multinations, media conglomerates and infrastructure owners. [read more] [fr]

WSIS? WE SEIZE! polimedia lab

07.Dec.03 - The WE SEIZE! Polimedia Lab is a temporary media and communications laboratory, taking place as part of theWSIS? WE SEIZE! events and actions in Geneva. It will serve as a platform to develop and experiment with horizontal communication, to share experiences and knowledge, to create networks of alternative and grassroots communication projects, and present an alternative vision of information society. Like all other open WE SEIZE! events, the Lab welcomes local Genevans, WSIS delegates, NGO members and info-activists alike to use the lab for skill sharing and learning. [read more] [fr] [es]

WE SEIZE! strategic conference programme

05.Dec.03 - The second version of the programme for the WSIS? WE SEIZE! strategic conference on december 9th & 10th in the Usine in Geneva is our.programme is out. [read more]

HIGHNOON call for audivisual protest

29.Nov.03 - High Noon is an audiovisual protest over three days (Dec 10-12) that gathers objections against the WSIS in Geneva in order to assert our claims to the so called "information society".
Since we are reluctant to report from yet another useless global summit to the rest of the world, we want to engage international participation in this media event that inverts the centralistic self-referential structure set-up by WSIS in order to distribute media presence equally between time-zones. High Noon works as an interface for confronting and exposing rhetorics of the WSIS by the variety of media contributions and interventions uploaded by media activists and artists from around the globe. We will be following the revolution of the sun using its light as a scanner to raise up local experiences and stories to tell. For three days it will be always midday in HighNoon. For each midday you are invited to participate rather than be represented! [read more] [fr] [it]

WE SEIZE! Strategic Conference

25.Nov.03 - Taking place as part of the WSIS? WE SEIZE! events and actions in Geneva, the WE SEIZE! Strategic Conference (S-CONF) will take the form of two days of open discussion and short presentations. S-CONF welcomes local Genevans, WSIS delegates, NGO members and info-activists alike to join the debate. The conference is intended to provide allow everyone involved to explore the key issues involved in information politics today and to gain a better understanding of this fledgling movement. [read more]

WSIS? WE SEIZE!

15.Sep.03 - call for a platform for interventions in, outside of, counter to and as an alternative to the agendas and organization of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which takes place from December 10th to 12th in Geneva, Switzerland.

Over the past months, activists and artists with different backgrounds ranging from indymedia centers to the noborder-networks, from the Free Software movement to community media, from grassroots campaigns to hacker collectives, have been discussing how to intervene in, outside of, counter to, or as an alternative to the agenda and organisation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) from December 10th to 12th in Geneva, Switzerland.

WSIS is the first of two global summits dealing with information and communications to be held by the United Nations in Geneva. But the Summit is a smokescreen. Although it talks about the digital divide, knowledge dissemination, social interaction, political engagement, media, education, and health, this language is used to mystify the continuing use of information to protect and advance the interests of global capital. [read more] [fr] [es] [it]

Geneva03: the Bubble Bursts

07.Jul.03 - The following is an agreed statement of the Geneva03 Autonomous Media Collective who assembled and produced the live stream in the days arounds the G8 summit in Evian in june 2003.

Locked away in their lakeside resort, the G8 must reckon once again with their own abject failure. Met by demonstrations and the diffuse violence produced by systemic crisis, they have no answers except escalations of that violence. That is the same as no answer at all. Their opponents, meanwhile, have no programme but to celebrate the G8's eclipse.

Despite their outward performance of control, socio-economic management and domination, the g8 meeting takes place at a time when their structures are in decay, their power in crisis. They have abandoned the cities for their meetings, confronted by domestic and international protests which meet them even im their elite hideaways. Evian is a water town, and here again the bubble has burst. [read more]

3000 demonstrate against IOM, WIPO and WTO

01.Jun.03 - about 3000 people participated at the demonstration against iom, wto and wipo in geneva last friday. the evening before a lifestreamed "talk-show" took place, where the relationship between migration-regime and intellectual property-regime, between freedom of movement and freedom of information have been discussed on various levels. this info-event should also serve for the mobilisation next day, but the estimations, how many people will come to the demo, still remained very pessimistic, hoping for at least a few hundred people. [read more]

Wipe out IOM, WTO and WIPO

20.May.03 - In the days preceding the mass protests of June 1st against the G8, we hope thousands of people will converge in the region in order to take part in the camps, conferences, workshops and help prepare the large demonstration and mass civil disobedience of June 1st.

In the framework of these activities we call for a demonstration in the "institutional quarter" of Geneva on Friday May 30th. Our intention is to politically express our fundamental criticism of capitalist development and our clear rejection of more and more transnational instruments of exploitation, control and exclusion. [read more]